More Than Just Monster Ducks?

Did you ever play mad libs growing up? A mad lib is a game where you randomly choose nouns and verbs that you then put into a story and the end product is a nonsense story that is just straight up funny. How about that game where you would draw something on a piece of paper and then have a friend add to the drawing and then you add something else and you go back and forth adding things until you have a hilarious picture of something totally random. There is a part of us that really loves things that are random and slightly chaotic. 

I found myself having a similar experience as I played with DALL-E, an “AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language”. It is also just cool that there is technology that is smart enough that it can come up with an image on the spot based on a prompt that you gave it. That and the randomness of the things it creates makes for a very enjoyable experience. I found myself typing more and more random things just to see what it would come up with. For example, my friend and I started with the prompt “giant monster duck destroying city” which ultimately led to “giant monster duck destroying city at night with helicopters” Each time we added something new to our prompt we got slightly different results and we found them funny every time. 

I have confirmed that this technology is indeed enjoyable and quite hilarious. But could there be more to it than just creating images of monster ducks? Could there and are there instances where this technology would be useful in fulfilling a purpose greater than just pure enjoyment? The answer is yes! Images that are created in DALL-E are available for commercial use and you are given full rights to use the images that are created by the AI. How cool is that!? Although, after playing with the software I recognize that it isn’t perfect and at this point most of the images that it comes up with have a very comedic look to them this is a technology that has a lot of potential in the future and I am really excited to see where it goes from here.